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With segregated schools, inflated rents and the risks of working illegally, the Syrian refugees swelling the Jordanian town of Mafraq have exchanged the problems of their homeland for new dangers. But locals also face a struggle of their own - how can they cope with so many new arrivals?

Mafraq is a frontier city in the northern Jordanian desert, close to the Syrian border. Although only an hour’s drive from the capital, Amman, it’s not on the tourist trail. It’s not like Petra with its ancient archaeological ruins; there is no cinema or theatre, no sports facilities. ‘Mafraq is a forgotten city,’ according to one former resident.

But things are changing. When the Syrian uprising began five years ago, the city’s population was about 60,000. Now it’s closer to 138,000. (Syrians living in Mafraq province – more than 20 villages – have reached over 288,000.) Mafraq has more than doubled in size.

Syrian refugees fleeing the war have increased Jordan’s population by 10 per cent – comparable to the whole of Finland moving to the UK. And no city in Jordan has been more altered than Mafraq, where refugees are starting to outnumber the resident population. For locals, sharing their city is now part of life. But how to make room for so many new arrivals?

Arriving in Mafraq earlier this year, I’m met by Dr Ali Shdeifat, 68, a Jordanian aid official, businessman, former officer in the Jordanian army and father of seven. He is now president of the Red Crescent Society (Mafraq branch).

We first met nearly four years ago when I was in Jordan, reporting on Syrian refugees. The flow of Syrians into Mafraq had reached emergency levels – hundreds arriving each night, dodging sniper fire, crossing the frontier by foot.

Shdeifat would wake to find families camped in the streets. It was a hard time: the need to help so many, scant funds, not enough tents. ‘Sometimes we work 24 hours a day,’ he told me then. ‘Twenty-four hours!’ Back then, talk among refugees was of returning to Syria when the fighting stopped: ‘Inshallah. God willing, we will go back.’

Someone was killed in front of our house. People started shouting at me to bring mud to cover the blood

Today, Shdeifat is good-humoured, though his movements are slower. He had a stroke last year. ‘Do you remember?’ he recalls. ‘I said the crisis would take a year to fix... people laughed and said, no, it will be over in two months.’

The Mafraq branch of the Red Crescent has moved to a bigger office and hired more staff. The situation, in aid speak, has become a ‘protracted crisis’. I ask Shdeifat what would best illustrate the changes to the city. ‘Bread queues, rubbish and schools,’ he replies.

Syrian-Jordanian split

Around 1.30pm the next day, we arrive at a boys’ secondary school in the El Hussein district of Mafraq, a densely populated area in the north of the city. As in many schools in Jordan, the day is divided into morning and afternoon sessions, and around 250 boys, aged from seven to 16, are lined up in the playground. ‘Stretch to the left, stretch to the right,’ says a teacher in Arabic at a microphone.

Next, they sing the Jordanian national anthem. ‘Long live the King!/Long live the King! His position is sublime.’ The teachers stand to attention. The boys stand to attention. Then the boys look down and shuffle their feet as individuals are chosen to read out passages from the Koran.

Back then, talk among refugees was of returning to Syria when the fighting stopped: ‘Inshallah. God willing, we will go back’

It’s the kind of scene you’d see throughout Jordan. Columns of children, discarded rucksacks, restless energy. The surprise is that none of these boys is Jordanian. They’re Syrian, mostly from Homs.

Split shifts have become the norm in Jordanian cities. Jordanian children from 8.30am to 12.30pm; Syrian, from 1.30pm to 4.30pm. ‘There was a government edict that all schools had to educate Syrian children,’ says a supervisor from the education directorate of Mafraq. Syrians and Jordanians are taught separately because of ‘different cultural values and customs’.

The supervisor tells me that 43 schools in Mafraq province operate split shifts, educating 15-16,000 Syrian children who are taught by 800 newly recruited teachers. The upshot is up to 80 children a class and a shortened school day for Jordanian children (which was typically 8.30am to 2.30pm).

Syrian boys look out over the city from their home, which is rented from the Jordanian National BankCredit:
Ivor Prickett

I think of where I live in south-west London. A two-hour cut in the school day would not go down well. Have there been complaints? ‘Some parents complain of dirtiness of the schools,’ he replies. What about less time spent learning? ‘They’ve adapted.’

The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan is small, a nation of 9.5 million, with very limited natural resources. It’s not oil- rich, like its neighbour Saudi Arabia. And water is scarce. Jordanians are brought up with the idea that water only comes from the tap once or twice a week.

Yet the country has absorbed hundreds of thousands of refugees from previous conflicts. When it was still young, it took in nearly one million Palestinian refugees from the 1948 and 1967 Arab-Israeli wars. The Gulf wars of 1991 and 2003-11 prompted more arrivals, and there are now more than two million Palestinian refugees and nearly 55,000 Iraqis living in Jordan.

Closing borders

Syria and Jordan are geographically and culturally close. They share a 355-mile border. And the uprising in Syria began in Dara’a, a city only 25 miles from Mafraq. The first wave of refugees came from the towns and villages of Dara’a province, a region of just under one million, or from the provincial capital of Dara’a, which has a population of 80,000.

Salam Mohammed Al Mallouhi and her husband, Safwan, in the garage they have been living in for 18 monthsCredit:
Ivor Prickett

But as the war escalated, this changed. Many families in Mafraq came from Homs, a city in western Syria. Homs is far from Jordan, but close to Lebanon. To reach Mafraq, they would have gone south through the Damascus countryside and the plains of Hauran, a journey of 160 miles. But then there are no sectarian conflicts in Jordan, as there are in Lebanon. Jordan is a Sunni Muslim country and most of the Syrian refugees are Sunni.

But Jordan’s attitude has changed. The King of Jordan warned that his country was at ‘boiling point’ at a conference on Syria held in London in February. King Abdullah said the flood of refugees into his country had damaged its education and healthcare systems.

‘Sooner or later, the dam is going to burst,’ he said. International leaders at the conference pledged $6 billion for 2016 to tackle the Syrian crisis (with $496 million assigned to Jordan); 73 per cent of the funding has been signed off so far.

In the early years of the war, refugees could flee to neighbouring countries. But as it has continued, countries have shut their borders. In 2011 there were 90 official entry points between Jordan and Syria. Earlier this year there were three. The Jordanian border has been closed since June, due to a terrorist attack. About 80,000 Syrians are now trapped in the ‘berm’ – the no-man’s land between Syria and Jordan.

More than 670,000 Syrian refugees registered with the UN in Jordan as a whole. The majority – around 85 per cent – live in cities and towns. Yet it’s the small percentage of camp refugees – about 100,000 – who are the focus of attention.

Salam’s husband cries each day and says he will risk the journey to Europe, even the boat from Turkey to Greece. He tells her, ‘We are almost dead anyway’

Gavin White from the UNHCR (United Nations High Commission for Refugees) is the external-relations officer of Mafraq. Part of his job is marshalling the succession of dignitaries visiting Zaatari, the refugee camp six miles east of Mafraq.

On the day we speak he is expecting Jill Biden, wife of the US vice president, Joe. Previous visitors have included Angelina Jolie, the Prince of Wales, David Cameron and Malala Yousafzai. ‘Zaatari camp has somehow become a symbol of Syrian refugees,’ he says. The reason, he explains, is logistical. ‘You have a large population in a very dense area.’

Refugees in the camp get aid from the international community: schools, bakeries, cafés, clinics, grocers, jewellers, tailors, barbers. The population receives half a million portions of bread a day and five million litres of water. Urban refugees, at the mercy of locals and limited aid, are worse off. They are the forgotten people.

Settling at a crossroads

The name ‘Mafraq’ means crossroads, due to its position at the intersection of several highways (to Saudi Arabia, Iraq and, before it was closed, Syria). People typically passed through Mafraq en route to somewhere else. Now, thousands are settling.

They didn’t lack food or water in their own country, and they lived in dignity. Who in Mafraq would agree to live in a sheep pen or poultry farm?

Amjad Nasser, a Jordanian-born and London-based poet and writer, grew up in Mafraq, the son of an army officer. He recalls the arrival of Palestinian refugees in his school in 1967. ‘We had to study in two shifts. That’s what’s happening today, but in larger numbers.’

Nasser recently returned to Mafraq to visit his family. ‘I tried to map out a route of my movements in the city I left three decades ago, but failed. There are new neighbourhoods, new streets, and old streets that no longer exist. A new city is developing on the outskirts of the old city.’

Nasser’s family home is in the al-Dubbat district, beyond which there used to be nothing more than a few military bases. Now it is in the midst of a sprawl, surrounded by housing developments for Syrians able to pay the prices. Ten years ago, a dunam of land – 1,000 square metres – was worth about 300 Jordanian dinar (about £350 in today’s money). Today it costs 150,000 dinar (£173,000).

Safwan, who escaped from Homs and is paralysed from the waist down, sells biscuits on the streets of MafraqCredit:
Ivor Prickett

Dalal Shehab, 31, used to own a shop selling fridges and dishwashers in a now ruined and abandoned neighbourhood of Homs. Her husband worked in construction. They have been in Mafraq for four years with their four children and she works as an informal fixer for the uprooted Syrian community.

‘I investigate who needs help and tell the Red Crescent,’ she explains, through a translator. ‘I’m a bridge.’ Her speciality is sourcing homes for refugees. ‘Some have bought three-bedroom houses in Hay El Zauhour, the smart area in west Mafraq. But these are the minority. Mostly I visit families living in one room, abandoned shops and tents.’

She takes me to a run-down building that used to be a garage and car wash. Today it is the home of Salam Mohammed Al Mallouhi, 41, and her husband, Safwan. They escaped from Homs three years ago, because of the bombing, a terrifying journey made worse by their disabilities. Salam is of restricted height, and Safwan is paralysed from the waist down, owing to a childhood accident.

Roweda El Shabli with five of her six children in the house they rent for the equivalent of £160 a month. They fled from Homs in 2012 because the children were ‘traumatised by the sound of bombs and people screaming’Credit:
Ivor Prickett

They have been living in the garage for 18 months. When they arrived, it was abandoned. The floor and walls are exposed concrete, but the room has been made homely with a bed, a gas cylinder for cooking and a water supply donated, she says, by (Jordanian) neighbours. According to Salam, her husband cries each day, defeated by the situation, and says he wants to go to Europe, and is prepared to risk the journey, even the boat from Turkey to Greece.

‘She tells him, we will die this way,’ relays the translator. ‘He tells her, we are almost dead anyway.’ Their rent is almost £165 a month. Roweda El Shabli arrived from Homs in 2012 and now lives with her six children (aged five to 16) in four rooms, south of Mafraq, in a building owned by the Jordanian National Bank. Her rent is £172 a month.

She is separated from her husband and fled because of her children. ‘They were traumatised. The biggest thing that terrified them was the sound of the bombs. And people screaming. Someone was killed in front of our house. People started shouting at me to bring mud to cover the blood.’

Living like livestock

Another area, Dahiya, known for livestock and poultry farms, is being transformed into a housing development for lower-middle-class residents, following the departure of the farmers further south. A developer saw an opportunity to make money and has converted the livestock pens – concrete blocks with tin roofs – into rooms and apartments for Syrian refugees.

Nasser’s father, like other locals, believes refugees are being exploited. ‘He says they come from a land that is more fertile with better weather,’ Nasser says. ‘They didn’t lack food or water in their country, and they lived in dignity, only escaping to save their lives. Who in Mafraq would agree to live in a sheep pen or a poultry farm? And they’re being charged the same price as a normal apartment to live there.’

I meet Hamad Nazzal, a Jordanian teacher in his 40s, on his way to work. He also defends the refugees. ‘This street,’ he says, indicating a strip selling handbags, trainers, mobiles, wedding dresses and sweets, ‘used to be deserted by late afternoon. Now it’s buzzing.’

Syrians are easily identifiable to Jordanians by their accent, clothes and the way women wear their headscarves. ‘Empty shops are now occupied by Syrians opening restaurants and bakeries,’ he says. ‘There’s more rubbish, but it’s not their fault.’

Locals walking through the streets of Mafraq. The huge
influx of refugees has led to a new city developing on the outskirts of the old one Credit:
Ivor Prickett

The detritus of takeaway cartons, packets and bottles is evident throughout Mafraq’s congested streets. Ahmed al-Hawamdeh, head of the city council, has blamed it on the increase in resident numbers, arguing that the council lacks the resources to manage the refugees.

But Nasser feels this is only partially true. ‘The situation has deteriorated since the refugees arrived, but the city was in bad shape to begin with,’ he says. ‘Jordanian authorities have neglected Mafraq. The city has had no cultural or sports facilities in living memory, and local MPs are only visible during elections. There is a governor and city council in charge of infrastructure, but the impact of their work isn’t visible.’

Nazzal admits his views are not widely held. Many in Mafraq blame declining conditions in the city – rising prices, unemployment, the queues in the health clinic – on the refugees. ‘Imagine you have a house with 10 people and 200 guests come to stay,’ says my Jordanian driver. ‘The water, electricity, transportation – all the resources will get exhausted. It’s OK to have a guest for two to three weeks, not five years.’ Discontent is growing.

Financial struggles

Among the refugees, meanwhile, there are two competing emotions: anxiety about needing to work and the fear of being caught when they do. While it’s true that around 26,000 work permits have been granted for Syrians (only two percent to women), a larger percentage work illegally (skilled professionals, such as teachers and doctors, are still unable to work in their fields despite pressure on public services).

‘We can’t go home because we’d be killed,’ he continues. ‘We can’t go to Europe, because you are not human, you are an animal. We’re stuck here. It is a big problem’

I meet her at an aid-distribution desk in the foyer of Alia Bint Al Hussein school, north of Mafraq, where she has picked up 120 dinar (£140) from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), one of 12 monthly payments paid to 300 families. The ICRC is targeting ‘female-headed households’, and Hamran, who is from Homs, is a widow with three boys and two girls. Her husband was killed in a car crash on his way to Mecca for the Hajj some years before.

But the ICRC contribution doesn’t cover her rent, which is 250 dinar (£290) a month for three rooms. The shortfall is sometimes donated by Jordanian neighbours who take pity on her. ‘My sons want to work, but if they got caught they’d be sent back to Syria. They just sit at home, watching television. I believe they are going to have psychological issues when they grow up.’

In Jordan, 90 per cent of registered Syrian refugees in urban areas have fallen below the poverty line, while more than 67 per cent of families are living in debt, according to the Regional Refugee Resilience Plan mid-year review, carried out by the UN, local governments and aid groups. ‘They might have had savings when they arrived, but over time they can’t sustain themselves,’ says Gavin White.

The British Red Cross is currently supporting 1,200 ‘extremely vulnerable’ families, with hand-outs of up to 160 dinar (£185) a month. ‘From December they’ll also get a winter top-up,’ says a spokesperson. ‘We’re looking into livelihood activities – such as a community kitchen – and vocational training.’

Later I meet Derran, a 36-year-old Syrian, outside the mobile-phone shop where he works. He used to live in Homs and has been in Mafraq for over two years. ‘I need rent, food, everything. If I don’t work, I don’t eat,’ he says. He is the breadwinner in a family that includes his mother and two sisters, and he’s always anxious when he goes to work. ‘Each day I pray, don’t catch me.’

‘We can’t go to Europe’

Like many, he’s had enough of Jordan and plans to go to Europe. ‘Not by boat, the sea is death; the official route, through UNHCR.’ He is conscious that Europe has a negative view of people like him: ‘You go to Europe, you’re a terrorist. Every country says, we don’t want Syrians.

‘We can’t go home because we’d be killed,’ he continues. ‘We can’t go to Europe, because you are not human, you are an animal. We’re stuck here. It is a big problem.’

Donate to the British Red Cross Syria Crisis Appeal, which supports work in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, at redcross.org.uk/syria